40 лет Санкт-Петербургской типологической школе

b) with the reflexive suffix — s':

Stariklon s'ojs's zo n'in

old.man-GEN eat-REFL-PST-3 SG PTL already

«The old man has finished eating already»;

Virin'ejalon ez na c'ec'c'yss'y

Virineja-GEN NEG-PST-3SG yet get.up-REFL-PST-3SG

«Virineja did not feel like getting up / could not get up»;

c) with modal predicates:

Povodd'ayslon kolo n'in vezs'yny

weather-DEF-GEN must already change-INF

«The weather must change»;

d) the subject of certain phraseological predicates indicating non-voluntary state (vez peto «to want something», lit. «desire comes out») [Fedjunjova 2000: 66].

4. Degrees of subject demotion

To illustrate the difference between the possessive impersonal construction and the impersonal construction expressing involuntary action with the reflexive suffix, some citations and an excerpt from the history is in order. The eminent Komi linguist, V. I. Lytkin (Illa Vas'), was arrested in 1930 and accused of national bourgeois tendencies and espionage. He had just returned from Hungary, and, occupied as he was with studying, writing poems and publishing them he had no idea about what was going on at home. On returning to the USSR, he was publicly criticized, and he made a full «confession», explaining his motives with all the possibilities of subject demotion available in the language.

First, he wrote that he had answered the critics, but the text had not been published:

Menam kuz'a gizs'oma da «Ordym» zurnalyn

I-GEN long write-REFL-PERF-3SG and Ordym joumal-lNESS

ez pet

NEG-PST-3SG appear

«I had written (unintentionally, apparently) extensively, and (it) did not appear in the magazine Ordym» [IllaVas' 1994(1931): 91].

Lytkin continues to excuse himself by thanking the critics who had opened his eyes to many blemishes in his text Munflny: it was neither a poem or a poema, but something in between, and it would not produce any great ideas.

Sess'a bara zo gizoma voli zev termas'omon

then again PTL write-PERF-3SG COP-PST very hurriedly

«Then again, it was written in a great hurry»,

Me voli seki (1927 voyn) Budapestyn

I was then (1927 year-INESS) Budapest-iness

zil'a-estoda dissertacijaos

exert-finish-PRES-1SG thesis-ACC

«I was then (in 1927) in Budapest trying hard to finish my thesis».

<…>Ses'an' menam mod n'el'uc'ki:

from.that I-GEN other blemish

«Because of that I made another error:»

menam komi jozto, Komi muto vyvti jona

I-GEN Komi people-ACC Komi land-ACC too strongly

idealizirujts'oma i

dealize-REFL-PERF-3SG

«It came out that I (had) idealized the Komi people and land too much».

Kritilgas gogorvoomaos': me po c'olom bytt'o

critics understand-PERF-3PL I Quot greeting as.if

vis'tala komi kulakly, komi bedn'akly i

say-PRES-lSG Komi kulak-DAT Komi poor.people-DAT and

bydonly

everyone-DAT

«The critics seem to have thought that Iwas greeting the Komi kulaks, the Komi poor people and everyone».

Mees'ko ac'ym kosji zuny: stavudzalys' Komi joz…

I maybe myself want-PST-lSG say-INF all working Komi people… «I myself would have wanted to say: to the entire working Komi people».

In the first case, the agent is not expressed, but the construction is impersonall, thus the responsibility is to some extent hidden and avoided. The pluperfect with the copula voli has here apparently the same function as the past-in-past of the Western European («Standard Average European») pluperfect. In the second example, the reflexive suffix expressly removes the responsibility of the author, the event just happened without his volition. The objects are retained, as is shown by the morphological markers. In the third example, the authorship is shown, but again demoted by the genitive form, although the verb form is the perfect without the reflexive suffix. Thus it only shows the resulting state. The critics' part in this is based on the result, and the perfect of the verb «understand» has a clear evidential meaning: the critics must have understood the author's words in a certain way. The author tries to avoid their interpretation by using the quotative particle po. The last predicate in the simple past kosji «I wanted», shows what the author did intentionally and in full consciousness.

5. The possessive construction and the question of transitivity

The impersonal constructions based on the participle — om(a) are, as was noted in the beginning, neutral. One of the fullest descriptions of Komi from the XDCth century states:

Das Passiv kann zwar durch eine besondere Classe der abgeleiteten Zeit-worter ausgedruckt werden, die Verba Media, aber diese konnen auch reflexive, sogar active Bedeutung haben. Deutlicher und zugleich fehlende Zeitformen ersetzend ist die Umschreibung mit dem ersten und zweiten Tempus des Zeitworts «sein» und dem aus lony (werden) fur dasselbe ge-wonnenen Future, verbunden mit dem siebenten Verbalnomen auf — ma <…> Das erste Tempus des Zeitworts «sein» kann als Copula in affirmative Satzen natiirlich auch fehlen <…> gizoma (es ist geschrieben), <…> em-bur kod' hod yb vylyn dz'eboma voly «Wie ein Schatz, welcher auf dem Felde vergraben war» [Wiedemann 1884:201].

That is, there is no formally marked passive in Komi, and the analytic constructions with instrumental agents that appear in grammars are obvious loan translations from Russian (E. A. Cypanov in [Fedjunjova 2000: 282]). In earlier grammatical descriptions, e. g. [Lytkin 1955], such constructions are claimed to represent genuine Komi passive forms. The tradition has been faithfully continued until today, and has taken root in modem written Komi (see e. g. [Ludykova 1993]).

As in the historical development of languages with habere